1. CVA Sustaining Membership
The CVA offers Sustaining Membership to those paying our $25 annual
subscription. In addition to the weekly e-newsletter available to all
members, Sustaining Members receive the Take Heart! daily e-messages,
which include inspirational comments, biblical commentary, health tips,
an advice column, and recipes.

To become a Sustaining Member, go to our membership page, and fill
out the form, which will take you to the dues-paying section. Or, you
can send a check to CVA, PO Box 201791, Cleveland, OH 44120. Donations
to the CVA are tax-deductible.

Regarding the Take Heart! daily e-note, Barb writes: I just wanted to
thank you so much for all your hard work. It can't be easy putting
together an informative and well-written message every day. I really
appreciate the positive tone that CVA takes. It's all about honoring
God's creation by doing the best we can, not personally attacking people
who haven't yet "seen the Light" concerning God's love for all creation.

3. CVA Activism
Georgia writes: We went to see Fast Food Nation on the opening
weekend and
passed out the CVA booklets afterward to people who seemed very open for
more information. Most of the people there were shocked at the realities
that they saw and many talked afterwards.

Christina at Jeremy Camp Beyond Measure Tour in Anderson, IN writes:
Two of
us leafleted, together, for a little over one hour last Saturday
evening. It
was a cold, dark, wet and windy evening but we didn't let that dampen
our
enthusiasm.

I was privileged to be working with Michele. She is a very
passionate,
enthusiastic and encouraging person and I found the evening to be a very
positive experience.

We handed out nearly a whole box of 'Honoring God's Creation'
booklets. As
before, I found most people happy to take a booklet. Many people read
the
title on the booklet and would say something like "Oh Christianity and
vegetarianism" smile and add thank you before walking away with the
literature. Michele had one man who said he and his wife used to be
vegetarians and had recently felt a strong need to return to a
vegetarian
lifestyle. He thanked her with great enthusiasm as he took the
literature.

Despite the cold, wind and rain we were very glad to be leafleting
and I
hope to have the opportunity to work with Michele again.

After the event I heard from one person who talked with a person
working for
His Mercy Ministries, a soup kitchen in Vanier that the free will
offering
was going to that night. When the His Mercy Ministries organizer
realized
that the booklet contained vegetarian recipes, she was very keen to get
her
hands on a copy so they gave her one of their booklets.

To find out about all upcoming leafleting and tabling opportunities
in your
area, join the CVA Calendar Group at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group.christian_vegetarian/. Read the home page,
and then join. You will then be able to log in anytime to identify
upcoming
events in your region. Contact Paris at
[email protected]
if
you might be able to help.

Many animal advocates have been troubled by the story, described in
Mark
5:1-20 and Luke 8:26-39, of the Gerasene demoniac. Jesus exorcised
demons
from a possessed man, and the demons then inhabited a herd of swine who,
crazed, ran down a steep bank and drowned in a lake. A remarkable aspect
of
this story is that there is no such steep bank near Gerasa.

Therefore, I
think it is most reasonable to regard this story as revealing
allegorical
truths rather than as literal historical narrative. In other words, I do
not think that Jesus actually killed 2000 pigs; the story tells truths
about
Jesus' healing powers, but they are not all literal truths.René Girard has argued that, according to mimetic theory, the Gerasene
demoniac reveals profound insights into scapegoating.1

The possessed man
was
the communal scapegoat. He bore the burden of the people's unclean
spirits - they could blame him for their own forbidden thoughts and
desires
that threatened social order and peace. In Mark's account, "Night and
day
among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and
bruising
himself with stones." Normally, "possessed" people were hunted, stoned,
and
killed. Here, the man hid in the tombs and stoned himself, protecting
himself from the scapegoat's usual fate. His howling was an affront to
them, but they did not kill him. Rather than kill him, they bound him in
chains that were insufficient to hold him and allowed him to bruise
himself
with stones without causing lethal damage. His self-expulsion from the
community and self-injury satisfied the community's need for a
scapegoat.

Therefore, there was a balance between the insufficient chaining by the
community and the insufficient self-stoning by the man. This balance
allowed the scapegoat to live while serving the community's need for a
scapegoat.

Perhaps this unusual arrangement began when the scapegoat,
recognizing that angry communal members were convinced of his possession
and
determined to stone him, started to stone himself. Since the "demons"
were
already stoning the man, the community was afraid to join the demons in
stoning him.

The "possessed" man naturally feared Jesus, who had said, "Come out of
the man, you unclean spirit!" (Mark 5:8). Jesus threatened the balance
of
violence between the man and the community, which could lead to the
man's
death. When Jesus asked their names, the demons replied, "Legion," which
means many. The demons represented all the forbidden desires of the
community.

They were parts of the human psyche, and consequently they
could
not have had individual names, which would have indicated that they
existed
independent of human beings. The demons begged Jesus not to send them
out
of the country (Mark 5:10; "abyss" in Luke 8:31). I think the "demons'"
request reflected the community's concern that exorcising the demons
from
the community's current scapegoat would have forced the community to
find a
new scapegoat onto whom they could project their fears, feelings of
hate,
and illicit desires.

Frequently, people have tried to transfer the role of the scapegoat from
humans to animals. When the demons asked to be sent to the swine, this
represented the community's desire to see its own demons find a new
home.

The story refers to swine as the recipients of the spirits, since they,
as
unclean animals in Jewish eyes, seemed appropriate repositories of
unclean
spirits. However, the crazed pigs went over a steep bank and drowned.
What
has happened here? According to Girardian theory, typically people have
metaphorically or literally thrown those they regard as "possessed" off
a
cliff.

However, in this story, the "possessed man" was saved, and the
demons that had afflicted the community and that had been projected onto
the
scapegoat were destroyed.
The community's response to the cured man is illuminating: "they were
afraid" (Mark 5:15).

Their scapegoat was cured, and consequently their
peace and equanimity were threatened. Many people have argued that the
people were upset about the economic loss of the pigs, but if that were
the
case they would have been angry, not afraid. The Gerasene people asked
Jesus to depart, Jesus having done enough damage to the social order
already. Meanwhile, the cured man begged to leave town with Jesus, I
think
because the man was at high risk of being stoned by a community desperate to
reestablish order.

However, Jesus refused the man's request, forcing the
man to bear witness to Jesus' act of healing by destroying demons rather
than by destroying people. People "marveled" at the cured man's story,
indicating that destroying demons was not as socially devastating as
everyone had feared.

I do not think we should regard demons as individuals separate from
human beings. They are our forbidden thoughts and desires that threaten
to
disturb communal order and peace. However, they do more than possess us
individually. Because our desires are mimetic, they can become enshrined
in
institutions. The Holy Spirit works to cure demonic possession, but
institutions can be more difficult to cure than individuals.
Institutions
can become false gods to which people offer blind allegiance.

Consequently,
words alone cannot exorcise them. One needs to demonstrate that
institutional demons derive from and depend on lies. Jesus'
self-sacrifice
on the cross showed that "sacred" sacrifice, enshrined in religious
"laws,"
was scandalous.